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All Mythical Creatures

Creatures from myth, folklore and the bestiaries: dragons, phoenixes, griffins, kitsune, thunderbirds and the rest. Each entry records the culture it belongs to, the kind of being it is, and what the sources actually say about it. Many creatures appear in several traditions in different forms, and a shared name or shape does not always mean a shared origin.

Facts

Status

Standing as a Comparative Category

A collectors' category rather than a comparative one. Michael Dylan Foster shows that Japanese yokai will not sit inside the English "monster" or "mythical creature", and the same holds for most of the traditions gathered here. 2

Origins

Whose Classification This Is

The form-based classes are a comparative folklorist's device. Stith Thompson's Motif-Index (revised edition, 1955-58) sorts fabulous beings under B0-B99 by body-plan, as a finding aid for narrative motifs rather than a claim that the creatures belong together. 1

Structure

Grouped by creature form - dragons, serpents, birds, hybrids, spirits, water-spirits and the rest - which is how comparative folklore indexes arrange fabulous beings, and not how any tradition arranged its own. 1

Learn More

Beings of Myth and the Bestiary

This category gathers the creatures of myth, folklore and the bestiaries who are not gods: dragons, phoenixes, griffins, kitsune, thunderbirds, sea-serpents and the rest. Each entry records the culture the creature belongs to, the kind of being it is, and what the myths and older sources actually say about it.

These are the fabulous inhabitants of the mythic world (guardians and monsters, messengers and shape-shifters, hybrids of human and beast), known from epic, folktale, heraldry and the medieval bestiaries, and from the parallel traditions of many other cultures.

Parallels Without Merger

Similar creatures appear across cultures in related but distinct forms (the winged serpent, the fire-bird, the human-headed lion), and the temptation is to merge them into a single archetype. The atlas resists that: it notes the parallels while keeping each tradition's creature its own, since a Chinese dragon and a European dragon, or a phoenix and a Chinese fenghuang, differ as much as they resemble.

The entries stay with what the sources report rather than with later popular embellishment. The creatures group by kind (dragons, serpents, birds, hybrids, water-spirits and the rest), so a browser can move through the bestiary by type.

All Mythical Creatures

180 entries

Tradition

Attested In

Attributed To

Attested In Region

Historicity

Associated With

Domain / Function

Sacred To

Region of Origin

Creature kind

Sources

1. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature: A Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books and Local Legends

Stith Thompson, Indiana University Press, 1958B0-B99, Mythical Animals

2. The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore

Michael Dylan Foster, University of California Press, 2015the introduction, on the difficulty of the category

Nahual

Nasnas

Nats

Nekomata

Nidhogg

Nisse

Oni

Onryo

Pegasus

Peri

Phi Krasue

Phi Pop

Phi Tai Hong

Phoenix

Pishacha

Pishtaco

Pontianak

Pooka

Popobawa

Preta

Python

Qareen

Qarin

Qilin

Rakshasa

Rangda

Ratatoskr

Redcap

Revenant

Roc

Rusalka

Salamander

Salvans

Scylla and Charybdis

Selkie

Serpopard

Shaitan

Shedim

Shika

Shinigami

Sidhe

Simurgh

Siren

Skinwalker

Skoll and Hati

Sleipnir

Sphinx

Swan Maiden

Taniwha

Tengu

The Jotnar

The Oak King and the Holly King

Thunderbird

Tikbalang

Tokoloshe

Unicorn

Valkyries

Valravn

Vasuki

Vermilion Bird

Vetala

Vila

Vodyanoy

Vritra

Vucub Caquix

Wendigo

White Tiger

Wyvern

Yaksha

Yamaduta

Yamata no Orochi

Yatagarasu

Yazata

Ymir

Yurei

Zar

Ziz

Zmey

Zombi